"But it is terrible!" she said; "it did not seem to me as if Mr. Meredith could die."
"He may not. If they can succeed in keeping the fever under control there will be hope. The wound itself is quite manageable, Uncle Robert believes."
But by the end of the week Miss Jessie and her father had been summoned. There was very little if any hope.
One of Ada's occasional letters reached Kathie about this time. "Isn't it dreadful?" she wrote. "Mamma says that she can hardly forgive Uncle Edward for going in the first place, when there really was no need, and he was crazy to enlist afterward; and it puts everything out so! I must tell you that mamma intended to give a grand party. The cards had been printed, and some of the arrangements made, but when papa came home he would not hear a word about it. I have been out quite a good deal this winter, and have several elegant party dresses. I was to have a beautiful new pink silk for this, but mamma wouldn't buy it when she heard the worst news. It's too bad; and if Uncle Edward should be lame or crippled— O, I cannot bear to think of it! If he had been an officer there would have been a great fuss made about it. I really felt ashamed to see just 'Edward Meredith, wounded,' as if he were John Jones, or any common fellow! But I hope he will not die. Death is always so gloomy, and mamma would have to wear black; so there would be an end to gayeties all the rest of the winter."
Kathie felt rather shocked over this, it sounded so heartless. Was death only an interruption to pleasure? As for her, she carried the thought in her heart day and night, and began to feel what the Saviour meant when he said, "Pray without ceasing." How easy it seemed to go to him in any great sorrow!
"But O, isn't it lonely?" she said to her mother. "If Uncle Robert had been compelled to go, how could we have endured it?—and Rob away too,—dear Rob!"
That reminded her that she owed him a letter. It was such an effort nowadays to rouse herself to any work of choice or duty. "Which is not marching steadily onward," she thought to herself. "I can only pray for Mr. Meredith, but I may work for others. Rouse thee, little Kathie!"